


Redemption

by PlotQueen



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Suicide, and jesus is way more understanding than edward thinks he should be, or book of life, there is no hall of judgement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-01-01
Updated: 2000-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotQueen/pseuds/PlotQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever thought that Edward could see ghosts, but sometimes he can. Especially when that someone is so near and dear to his heart, and he'll do anything to save her soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redemption

“Poor, poor, Edward.”

The apparition swirled at the edges of his vision and Edward closed his eyes. Another night, another… visit. It was _her_. Again. He’d been waiting—he’d known she’d come—and now she was here. He set his drink down onto the coffee table, his eyes still closed, and his body went unconsciously stiff in the big chair.

“Poor Edward.”

Her breath was cold against his cheek and he knew from experience that if he opened his eyes it would be a small, delicate fog, clouded around his eyes as if to blind him. _She_ wouldn’t be there. She never was. He knew this too. She just danced and taunted him from the farthest reaches, from where he couldn’t touch her.

“Edward…” Her voice was a breath away from his face, he could feel her hovering there, so close, so very close.

He opened his eyes.

She wasn’t there, just as he’d known, but he could still feel her. Even if he couldn’t see her he could still feel her. She knew this; she made it that way just to mock him. Just to make him feel crazy. And it worked. As he looked around swiftly he saw nothing, no one, and he could still feel her eyes on him, watching him.

He stood up quickly, leaving the chair he’d waited for her in, and the tension in the air around him was physical. “Why?” he asked, and his voice was tight and harsh. “Why are you doing this?”

The lights flicked off and suddenly he was blind. His gun, the Beretta, was in his hands in a heartbeat even though he knew it would be useless against her. She was already dead. She had been for a year. A year tonight. 

Something glowed behind him, a soft blur, and he turned to it. But it was gone, behind him again. It danced away as he turned yet again and then he sighed. Holstering the gun he just stood there, hands at his side, his head down and face drawn and tired. 

A year of these visits every night, robbing him of sleep to the point where he endangered his own life when on a job. When he spoke again, it was the same question, and this time it was answered.

“You killed me, Edward.”

The gentle radiance that hid behind him flowed forward, until it was in front of him, floating, vaguely familiar. If he squinted against the glare he could almost see her, almost make out her face and her eyes. And then he could. She stepped out of the light and it became a dull shimmer around her.

“Anita.” Her name was hesitant in the still air, said almost reverently, almost fearfully; both at the same time. It was the first time he’d said her name since the night her life had ended. 

Since the night _he’d_ ended it.

She looked the same as she had that night, before the wind and the rain had touched her. Before anything, anyone touched her. Before he killed her. There was no sign of the bullet that he’d put through her forehead. She was perfect, pristine.

A smile spread across her face and she was beautiful. “You killed me, Edward. One year ago, tonight, you took my life.” Sadness etched the skin around her eyes and the smile wilted a bit. “I wasn’t supposed to die that night, Edward. You weren’t supposed to kill me.”

He knew.

He knew that he’d never been meant to pull the trigger that night. He’d never even been meant to be in St. Louis. And he wouldn’t have been. Except that he hadn’t had a choice. He’d tried to tell her then, he’d tried to tell her every night for a year, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know how. Because if he did, it would break her heart-if she still had one.

From the look that was spreading across her face, Edward was beginning to wonder. Anita’s eyes glittered, hard and feral. Dangerous. Edward began to feel cold inside but he wasn’t sure if it was him or if it was the dropping temperature in the room. His breath, as he breathed, was white and smoky in the air and the blue glimmer around Anita began to fade a bit.

Edward reached out for her and she glared at him. “Don’t,” she said softly. Her voice was soft and lilting, almost joyful. But there was steel underneath it and Edward had no illusions that it would cut him to the core.

He drew his hand back and watched her. She took a few steps to one side, almost floating in the air, so fluidly did she move, and for a moment it occurred to him that maybe she was an angel and not a ghost. An avenging angel sent by a god that he didn’t believe in to punish him for a lifetime of evil. She had always thought what he did was evil.

She always had simply because he enjoyed his work. It didn’t matter that he was always killing the people who’d crossed the line and joined with evil. It never mattered that he saved her life. And it never, ever mattered that he often put aside his own feelings to help her and to keep ‘her people’ safe. He always put aside his personal feelings when it came to her.

She began to speak again and Edward closed his eyes, refusing to watch her face as it twisted into pain and anger, fear and sadness. He could hear all of them in her voice and he didn’t want to see it on her face because _he_ was the one who had caused it.

“I wasn’t supposed to die, Edward. Not for a long time. I was supposed to live and get married and have a family. Not die in that storm, because of you. I _wanted_ to live. I _wanted_ a family.” Her voice softened. “But we don’t always get what we want, do we, Edward?”

He shook his head slowly, refusing to open his eyes. What he wanted was to take that night back. To take that night back and everything that had happened. What had happened? He still wasn’t sure himself, but he knew who was behind it, and Anita loved him. Anita loved the man who had wanted her dead. 

Because he was afraid of her and afraid of her power, her ruthlessness in her pursuit of what was right and just. He was afraid of her because she was good. She was simply good. In her heart, down to her very soul, she was _good_ , and that made him want her dead, before she usurped his power. He should have been more afraid of her revenge, but no, her revenge was reserved for Edward alone.

“And I’m here to make you pay for that, Edward. I’m your punishment.”

Edward’s eyes snapped open and he stared at her, at Anita, at a woman he’d known for years. No, this wasn’t the same woman. Her beauty had been shattered into a look of utter rage and hatred that bit into him as he looked. This wasn’t Anita. This was a monster. A demon. 

“I’d do anything to take it back, Anita, anything,” he whispered softly into the dark, cold room. And he meant it, if only for a moment, he meant it deep down to his soul. There was a flash of lightning, dark lightning, so dark that it was nearly black, though it seemed to escape having any color whatsoever. Edward closed his eyes against it and when he opened them he saw a storm building.

He was outside. A raindrop splashed on his face as he looked up and then the fury of the storm was unleashed. In moments the air was filled with warring water and wind—a tempest in all of its fury. And from behind him he heard a voice, loud against the storm, but still sweet and musical and utterly beautiful in the midst of the furor.

“Do you ever miss the parts that you killed?” she was asking. He remembered this. This was only minutes before he had killed her, a year ago, but now.

A year ago he had answered, “no,” but now… he wondered briefly what part of himself he had traded to get this chance again, to give her life again and preserve her goodness and innocence. Her beauty and purity. To give her another chance at life.

Yes, he thought it. And then he said it.

“Yes.”

He did miss the pieces of his soul that he’d killed, but he couldn’t take them back. Not now, not ever. Anita’s face showed her surprise before she quickly schooled it away, and Edward smiled at her. A real smile, one of the few he’d graced her with over the many years.

“I miss them, Anita.” And he felt it start. 

The heavy weight in his body began just behind his eyes and rapidly permeated him entirely. His body wasn’t his own anymore, and then he knew what was going on, why he was here. He was under mind control. But whose? He knew Jean-Claude was the one who wanted Anita dead, he’d been called and offered money for it on Jean-Claude’s behalf. But the vampire hadn’t traveled to Santa Fe. That particular vampire hadn’t rolled him.

Someone had, someone _had_!

If only he could remember whom, maybe he could break this hold and she would live… But he couldn’t remember, they wouldn’t let him. It didn’t matter. He knew how to end it completely. He looked at Anita and his eyes were filled with pain at what he was about to do and anger at the vampire that manipulated him. 

“I’ll miss you, Anita,” he said over the howling wind, and then he brought his gun, which he’d had pressed in his hand since the control had begun, to his head. She wouldn’t understand it; he hadn't been able to tell her. He looked away from her face and towards the sky. 

A prayer to a god he hadn’t believed in. A prayer that he’d never thought to cross his lips. _Please, God, please make it swift and then take me. Take me, so that I can watch over her._ It was a futile prayer, one that he knew would never be answered. Hopeless. It was hopeless. And then he pulled the trigger.

The world dissolved into blackness and his eyes closed. Then they opened again to… white. Pure, snowy white. As far as the eye could see, everywhere, everything was white. Except for the man sitting next to him where he himself sat. Edward looked at the man for a long moment. He was dressed in faded blue jeans, a white shirt, and sandals. 

Then he looked down at himself and found he was wearing the same. The man’s hair was flowing and a warm brown just past his shoulders, Edward’s heart sped for a second. He felt his own head and was relieved to find his own short blond hair, still long enough to curl slightly, but no longer than when he last remembered it. 

He looked back at the man and found himself smiling into the stranger’s eyes. They were brown, like his hair, and had the depth of what seemed to be the ages in them. His heart slowed and then beat steadily. His heart. His heart? Then Edward’s smile left his face.

No, that wasn’t right. He was dead, he’d killed himself. He’d died so that Anita would live.

“But you’re alive now.” The man’s voice startled Edward despite the fact he was sitting next to him. But he was soothed by it almost immediately. A deep peace slid over him and he looked intently at the man. 

“I know who you are,” Edward said, very certain.

The man nodded.

Then Edward said, “I don’t belong here,” just as certain.

“You do belong here,” and the warm peacefulness once again slipped over him. 

Edward fought it saying, “No, I don’t. I killed people. I had no faith in you. I traded my soul,” or part of it, his mind whispered, “to save Anita. I don’t belong here.”

The stranger who wasn’t a stranger anymore stood slowly, stretching his body out. “Did you or did you not ask to be taken? So that you could watch over your precious one?”

Edward nodded.

“And did you or did you not offer _anything_ to save an innocent soul from Hell? To save a soul of such strength of good, of such purity against evil?”

Edward nodded again, more than a little shocked that his own personal opinions of Anita’s soul were, in fact, true. Anita herself doubted her soul and faith, but in the end she was wrong about herself and as pure as she’d been when she started. Edward couldn’t help but smile at this himself and the other man smiled back, as if he knew what Edward was thinking.

Then the smile faded a little into a peaceful gaze. “You were willing to do that much to save her. That was enough for your past deeds to be reconsidered. Love is precious to us all, even here,” and he spread his arms out to show the white shifting into a tranquil garden. “And in the end you asked for forgiveness, in your heart if not in your words. We forgave you and brought you here, to watch over your beloved until she joins us.”

“Where’s the Hall of Judgment, the Book of Life?” Edward asked, more curious than sarcastic. Sarcasm wasn’t in his nature anymore than questions were, but he was dead. Who cared if he asked a few questions? Who’d know other than the other dead people?

“No hall, I got rid of that about two centuries ago. The Book of Life doesn’t exist, not really.” 

Edward was about to question this, he remembered reading the bible when he was a child, and before that having it read to him. He remembered being told of the Book of Life and how everyone who was being admitted into Heaven was written in it. If you weren’t in it, you weren’t going to Heaven.

But before he could ask the answer was given to him. “The Book of Life is written in the hearts of all the Faithful. If you have it inside you, you will come to me.”

Edward nodded and stood as he was beckoned to follow. They stopped when they reached a clear pool of water. Its surface was marred slightly by tiny rippled from a waterfall that whispered into a few feet away. The peace was replaced by waves that grew stronger and stronger until the surface was a frothy mass. Then they quieted leaving Edward with a clear view of the living Anita.

“What is this?” he asked, confused.

“When you traded yourself for her life by disrupting the time flow, your lives were changed and her future was made new. This is her future as she is living it now.”

Edward watched as Anita stood in the dark holding a small silver container in her hands. She was in a forest, he thought it was the one behind her house, and her face was unbelievably sad. His eyes widened in alarm as he saw an alabaster figure separate itself from the shadows.

“Is this happening to her now?” he asked, voice steady despite his fear for Anita.

A nod confirmed Edward’s fears and he watched as Anita lay the urn into a deep hole and went to the vampire for comfort. They spoke softly and he felt the faintest tendrils of jealousy slip out of him. That thing should not be holding her, or touching her. Then Anita’s voice rose and he could hear what was being said.

“You _what_?” she was saying, anger and then fear flitting across her face.

The vampire smiled and it was chilling. Edward reached out to touch the water but pulled his hand back the second his fingers slid past the surface. The image had blurred and all he could hear was, “The Aztec’s revenge took him. He had no chance against Itzpapalotl. Nor did she desire to risk me not telling her how to create her own triumvirate.”

When the image cleared he could see Anita dangling from the vampire’s grip several feet above the ground. She struggled but he laughed with glee as her legs and arms grew heavy and soon stopped moving. Just before she closed her eyes he said softly, “ _Je t’aime_. I did love your power, _ma petite_. But even that was too much for me to risk.”

And with a flick of his wrist he broke her neck, to ensure the strangulation was not false, though the marks that bound them were sure to tell him she was indeed dead. Edward winced as the crack was audible above the soft gurgle of the waterfall, and as Anita’s body fell to the earth the image dimmed and then disappeared. 

Edward was silently absorbing what he had just seen and heard when he felt a soft pressure on his arm. He turned pain filled eyes to the person and was surprised to find Anita standing next to him. His mouth opened and he meant to say something, but it never even became a thought.

His anguish and guilt over her death—despite his steps to prevent it—prevailed and he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly whispering, “I’m sorry, I let you down, I’m so sorry.”

Her arms embraced him and she was soothing him, wordlessly comforting him. Telling him that it wasn’t his fault, he’d done his best. It struck him as odd, he’d always been the one to watch over her. Never comfort, comfort was not a part of their relationship, but he wouldn’t have denied her comfort and love had she asked. He’d come to terms with that, with comfort, with his love for her, during the entire year he’d lived being haunted by her.

It had frightened him at first, then shocked and disgusted him, simply because it was so… abnormal to what was between them. But the more he’d thought about it the more he’d analyzed himself and his actions and the more obvious it had become that he was deeply in love with her. 

His relationship with Donna had ended shortly after Anita’s death, before he realized the depths of his feelings for Anita, and he’d come to the conclusion that he’d sought Donna because she was the exact opposite of Anita. Subconsciously he’d been searching for someone so far from her that he’d never think of her as more than a friend, a coworker. It had worked until he’d been forced to abandon that tactic of self-deception.

He drew back as a warm sense of utter calm descended over both of them and they turned as one to the stranger with peaceful eyes. He smiled at them and spread his arms wide. “Come, my children. The garden is ripe and there are many here for you to meet.”

Anita smiled and took a step forward, knowing him as her savior, realizing she wasn’t tainted, and she was happy. Edward did not move. He didn’t want this. He wanted to fix what he’d done wrong. Entirely. He shook his head and Anita and the peaceful man turned to him.

“You want another chance.”

It was not a question, he already knew what Edward wanted, and Anita’s mouth made a small ‘o’ of surprise as Edward nodded.

“She was not supposed to die then, I traded myself for her to live.” A shrug and a nod of agreement gave Edward the courage to speak further. “I love her, I refuse to change that. But,” and he refused to look at Anita, “I’ll trade my chance at happiness with her to let her live again.”

“The conditions being you both return, you make amends with what you didn’t correct before your death, and if you live through it you will never have happiness with her?”

It was almost like having his mind read, and Edward nodded. 

“Done.”

There was a flash of blazingly bright light and the last thing Edward was truly conscious of was of Anita’s voice whispering, “I love you,” on the still air.

He found himself once again at the beginning of a storm, the passion and violence of it just beginning yet again. It was the third time he’d lived through it, and he turned around. As he’d known she would be, Anita was standing behind him, the words just falling for her lips. “Do you ever miss the parts that you killed?”

Instead of answering he walked away. This time there was no heaviness. Only the compelling sense that he should return to her, he should do something. He knew what it was but he fought it with everything in him. And as he fought he hunted for a new target. He hunted for Jean-Claude.

He knew when he killed him Anita might die, but chances were that the wolf would die with the vampire, not her, and even though he couldn’t explain why it would happen like that, he just knew. Not divine intervention, it was something he’d known a long time. She would be safer without the both of them, and he would always be there to watch her back until he was too old or he got killed. 

When he found Jean-Claude he spared no time in placing a pullet in his heart. It didn’t kill the master vampire, but it did slow him down a bit, along with the following three. When he had the vampire’s attention he spoke, soft and succinct.

“You tried to have me kill her. You tried to pay me, you tried to force me. It didn’t work. I win, you lose. Because I love _her_. Not her power.”

Without a second thought he shot the vampire between the eyes, much as he had Anita when he’d killed her in that alternate destiny. She would never remember it. He knew that in his heart. And he would never tell her. He knew that in his head.

But when she arrived, pale and frightened, he very nearly told her the truth. She looked from him to the body of her dead lover and then back. “You?”

He nodded wearily. He was exhausted, physically and mentally. More so spiritually. A god he’d abandoned more than a decade ago was real, he’d been shown that without a doubt. Even more confusing—though somewhat reassuring—he’d been shown that he could atone for his misdeeds. He had, but it didn’t mean he could go back to indiscriminately killing. 

Yes, he would continue to do so if he lived through Anita’s anger and rage over what he’d just done, but he would have to be even more careful about his profession. But that might not be a worry, he decided as he looked at Anita her eyes were hard, much like the demon spawn she’d once been—had it really been so recent? It seemed like an eternity had passed. 

She looked at him coldly but didn’t draw her gun. “Leave, Edward,” she said. And her voice was cold. Colder than it had been when she’d been dead and had haunted him. “Leave now and never come back. If you do, I’ll kill you.”

He stood slowly, not questioning her release of him now. He assumed it was God’s grace that he’d been allowed all he had, and this was just another bit of light in his dark world. It would have been brighter still had her hatred not shone so vividly, but this, he knew, was one of his very own conditions. 

He stopped in front of her, smiling sadly but satisfied. He handed her his gun and walked away, waiting for her to shoot him in the back, all the while knowing she wouldn’t. He never looked back, only walked away from her, content in the knowledge that she was alive.

Unhappy, perhaps, without her, but content.

If he had looked back, he would have seen her crying and broken. He would have witnessed a heartbreak to equal the loves of the great ages. But how would he have known that she did not mourn the loss of her lovers? For both were dead. How could he have possibly known that the loss she mourned was him?

As he walked away he let the wind hold him and the rain wash away the tears on his face. Sighing, he whispered into the abating storm, “Anything, Anita. _Anything_.”


End file.
